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Conor Meagher
Conor Meagher

Posted on • Originally published at conormeagher.com on

Goodbye WordPress, Hello 11ty!

Image description

Past #

I have been using WordPress (WP) since 2010. Back then there wasn't a lot of open-source software (OSS) choices for hosting your own website with a blog. The thought of having a live website 24/7 that could be edited with a web browser and access to internet was what intrigued me.

Present #

The Monolithic architecture of WP made it so massive and bulky for a simple blog site with a single-user, it was hard to get away from it until now.

Say hello to the Jamstack architecture generated by a static site generator, Eleventy:

  1. J avaScript
  2. A PIs
  3. M arkup

The Jamstack architecture has many benefits, whether you’re building a large e-commerce site, SaaS application or personal blog.

Better Performance #

Why wait for pages to build on the fly when you can generate them at deploy time? When it comes to minimizing the time to first byte, nothing beats pre-built files served over a CDN.

Higher Security #

With server-side processes abstracted into microservice APIs, surface areas for attacks are reduced. You can also leverage the domain expertise of specialist third-party services.

Cheaper, Easier Scaling #

When your deployment amounts to a stack of files that can be served anywhere, scaling is a matter of serving those files in more places. CDNs are perfect for this, and often include scaling in all of their plans.

Better Developer Experience #

Loose coupling and separation of controls allow for more targeted development and debugging, and the expanding selection of CMS options for site generators remove the need to maintain a separate stack for content and marketing.

Jamstack architecture diagram, Bidirectional arrows between Client and CDN, Client and Microservices
Jamstack architecture diagam via jamstack.org

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